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Which to Automate and Which to Keep away from

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What number of various kinds of meeting duties are there? And which do you have to automate?

Meeting is probably the most frequent classes of duties that producers select to automate with robots.

In the event you’re seeking to automate an meeting process in your manufacturing line, there are quite a lot of choices you possibly can select from.

A few of these duties are straightforward to automate with a robotic. They’ll give fast returns and may have a excessive affect in your manufacturing. Different meeting duties are extra advanced and may have a much less clear affect in your manufacturing.

Let’s take a look at 15 frequent meeting duties. We’ll look at that are straightforward to automate with a robotic and which will be trickier.

Worker performing an assembly task with a cobot in a manufacture

What are the broad kinds of manufacturing duties?

There are dozens of various meeting processes in manufacturing. Many of those processes are doable to automate with a robotic.

You may consider there being 2 broad kinds of duties in manufacturing:

  1. Course of duties — These contain taking a workpiece and mechanically altering it so as to add worth to it. Examples of course of duties you may automate are machining, 3D printing, and floor ending.
  2. Meeting duties — These contain taking already-processed elements and fixing them collectively.

On this article, we’re specializing in the second of those.

The two kinds of meeting process

It’s also possible to consider there as being 2 classes of meeting duties:

  1. Everlasting becoming a member of strategies — That is the place the meeting operation is, roughly, non-reversible. Examples embody welding, brazing, and adhesive bonding.
  2. Mechanical becoming a member of strategies — That is the place the operation is, roughly, reversible. Examples embody screwdriving, inserting, and knotting.

You may automate each kinds of meeting duties with a robotic.

15 frequent meeting sorts and duties

Listed here are 15 frequent meeting duties that may wish to automate. Some are straightforward to automate with a robotic whereas others are barely tougher.

1. Adhesive bonding

Adhesive bonding includes becoming a member of two surfaces along with a chemical agent to create a powerful bond. The commonest instance of that is gluing.

As a easy dishing out process, it is fairly straightforward to automate adhesive bonding with a robotic.

2. Bolting

Bolting is without doubt one of the commonest becoming a member of strategies in manufacturing. It includes screwing a nut and bolt collectively. The 2 most important kinds of bolted joints are rigidity joints and shear joints.

Robotic bolting will be easy (so simple as screwdriving) or extra advanced if the nut is unfixed.

3. Brazing

Brazing is a course of for completely becoming a member of two items of metallic collectively. Utilizing a high-temperature flame, you soften a filler metallic to fill the be a part of between the 2 items.

Robotic brazing is actually doable. Like welding, it requires a specialist setup.

4. Cable tying

Cable ties are a fast and easily-reversible methodology for becoming a member of two gadgets collectively. They’re generally used to hitch cables and tubes.

The trickiest a part of cable tying with a robotic is inserting the tip initially. One resolution could possibly be to make use of an automated cable tie gun as an finish effector.

5. Clinching

Clinching is a technique for becoming a member of sheet metallic with out welding or fasteners. It includes mechanically deforming the metallic collectively to kind a powerful joint.

Robotic clinching is actually doable. Nonetheless, it tends to require giant industrial robots and customized tooling.

6. Crimping

Crimping, like clinching, includes becoming a member of two or extra supplies by deforming them. A typical instance is wire crimping to hitch a wire to a connector.

Crimping finish effectors for robots usually are not but widespread, however there are a lot of automated crimping instruments that you possibly can combine with a robotic.

7. Inserting

Inserting is maybe the primary operation you consider when you concentrate on “meeting.” It merely includes pushing one half into one other to create a mechanical match.

It’s extremely straightforward to automate insertion duties with robots, particularly in case you use programming options like Spiral Search.

Robotiq Force Copilot insertion node on a Universal Robot teach pendant

8. Knotting

Knots are a technique to be a part of rope and different cords collectively. It is without doubt one of the best becoming a member of strategies for us people to carry out.

Tying knots with robots is a really advanced process and is the subject of a lot ongoing analysis.

9. Magnet fastening

Typically, we wish to create an meeting be a part of that’s straightforward to reverse and reattach many occasions. For this, magnet fastening is without doubt one of the commonest becoming a member of strategies.

How straightforward it’s to automate your explicit magnet fastening process with a robotic depends upon the particular process.

10. Nailing or stapling

Nailing and stapling meeting duties each contain driving stable metallic, pin-shaped fasteners into two items of fabric.

Robotic nailing is kind of frequent. The duty requires a particular automated stapling finish effector.

11. Riveting

What’s essentially the most fascinating meeting process? It is riveting.

Jokes apart, riveting is a typical and highly-effective mechanical becoming a member of methodology. It includes driving a metallic rivet into two items of fabric and deforming the rivet to create a powerful connection.

Robotic riveting is feasible with a particular riveting finish effector.

12. Screwdriving

Screwdriving is without doubt one of the mostly automated meeting duties.

The robotic picks up a screw from an automatic screw feeder. It then drives the screw into the workpiece utilizing a screwdriving finish effector.

With an off-the-shelf Robotic Screwdriving Answer, you may rapidly and simply deploy your individual screwdriving robotic.

Robotic screw driver and screw feeder from Robotiq mounted on a robot from Universal Robot

13. Soldering

Soldering is utilized in electronics manufacturing to repair elements to circuit boards. A sizzling soldering iron is held to the metallic contacts and solder is melted onto them.

Robotic soldering is an more and more frequent type of meeting automation, utilizing a particular soldering software.

14. Staking

Staking includes connecting two elements with an interference match. A metallic or plastic “boss” is inserted right into a gap. Then, a excessive pressure or ultrasound is utilized to deform the boss, fixing it firmly into the outlet.

There are a number of robotic staking options, together with these utilizing ultrasonic staking.

15. Welding

Welding includes making use of warmth, stress, or each, to 2 metallic elements. Solder is then utilized to fuse the 2 metals. It differs from brazing in that the warmth is way increased.

Robotic welding is a extremely efficient utility for producers. It presents numerous compelling advantages over guide welding, together with higher consistency, much less post-weld clean-up, and extra environment friendly use of supplies.

Designing for meeting automation: Which to automate

Of all these 15 meeting operations (and any extra you may consider)… which do you have to automate with a robotic in your facility?

The fundamental rule is to select a process that’s:

  • Easy to automate.
  • Excessive affect for what you are promoting.

Say that you just select robotic screwdriving— a quite common process to automate. You may then search for examples of different producers who’ve additionally automated this process with a robotic to find out how they did it.

Meet the Screwdriving Solution

Which meeting process will you automate first? Inform us within the feedback under or be a part of the dialogue on LinkedIn, Twitter, Fb, or the DoF skilled robotics neighborhood.



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